Long Flight to Lian Yu
by skimmy77
Summary: Oliver and Barry transport Captain Boomerang to Lian Yu, and the conversation inevitably comes around to Felicity. 3x08 missing scene.


**A/N: I was thinking about Oliver and Barry taking Digger Harkness to the ARGUS prison on Lian Yu, and this is the conversation they had in my head.**

Barry wasn't ashamed to admit that he was a little bit awed at the private jet they were boarding, courtesy of ARGUS. He fanboyed all over the interior, oohing and aahing at the various luxuries he found. He sat in one of the seats and found a button on the armrest that made it recline to a full horizontal position, and he laughed out loud.

"Barry," Oliver muttered through clenched teeth, hauling an unconscious Digger Harkness by his side.

Barry looked up at Oliver with chagrin, and he wiped his smile off his face. He put the seat back in the upright position. "Sorry," he murmured, jumping up to help him.

They settled him into the seat across from the one Barry just vacated, cuffing all four of his limbs to secure him. Oliver pulled a small leather case out of his jacket, opening it to reveal a few syringes. He pulled one out and uncapped it, and Barry watched as he plunged it into Harkness' neck.

"Horse tranquilizer?" Barry guessed.

Oliver just raised an eyebrow at him. He recapped the syringe and put it back in the case before placing it back in his jacket. "He should be out until we get to Shanghai." He sat down in the seat facing Harkness.

"That was my-" Barry started to protest, but he clammed up at Oliver's glare. With a shrug, he took the seat across the aisle from Harkness and buckled in. He reclined the seat to his liking and tried to put his feet up on the one across from him, but fell slightly short. With another shrug, he placed his elbows on the armrests and folded his hands over his abdomen, closing his eyes with a sigh. It had been a pretty long day, and he had spent a lot of energy in the process of saving Starling City.

"How long is the flight to Shanghai?" he asked.

"About 13 hours," Oliver replied absentmindedly, not moving from his watchful position.

Barry looked between the unconscious Harkness and the ever-tense Oliver. "Are you gonna sit like that for all 13 hours? I think it's pretty safe. Like you said, he's out for the count."

Oliver shook his head once. "I won't feel safe until he's underground."

Barry blinked with surprise. "Underground? You don't mean...I thought we were taking him to a prison."

Oliver turned his head slowly, gazing at Barry with thinly veiled impatience.

Barry caught on. "Oh! The prison is underground. Got it." He held back a sigh. He couldn't understand why Oliver was being so prickly. They got the bad guy; wouldn't that be cause for celebration? He debated about calling him on it, but he was a little bit intimidated. Maybe if he tried a softer approach?

"I had a childhood nemesis," he began, "a bully that bothered me almost every day when I was younger. He turned out to be a meta-human. Could turn himself into steel. He got the best of me at first, but my team helped me figure out how to beat him." He turned a giddy smile on Oliver, who was pinching the bridge of his nose. "Super sonic punch. That's what Cisco calls it. I basically had to run at him fast enough to break the sound barrier and then place one perfect punch in the right spot. It was a pretty crazy risk. I mean, if one little thing went wrong, i would have been-"

"Is there a point to this, Barry?" Oliver interrupted, his fingers rubbing his eyebrows.

Barry swallowed at Oliver's curt tone, anxiety piercing his gut. He continued a little more cautiously. "When we put him away, I felt really good. But you don't look like you feel good about getting the bad guy. I'm just trying to figure out why you're being prickly."

Oliver sighed deeply. He was rubbing his forehead now, and he didn't look up when he spoke. "Sorry. I'm a prickly kind of guy."

Barry sighed through his nose and looked at his...hero...in concern. "You know you can talk to me anytime," he offered, echoing the words that had been spoken to him not long ago.

The side of Oliver's mouth quirked in wry amusement. "I'm not much for talking."

"Maybe you should be."

Oliver huffed a laugh. "You couldn't handle my baggage, kid."

"Try me," Barry challenged.

Oliver finally looked up and stared into Barry's eyes, quiet fury filling his own. "The first time I headed to Shanghai was in a boat that was sabotaged with explosives, and my girlfriend's sister was pulled out of my hands and into the water. Then I watched as my dad shot first the captain, and then himself, right in front of me. I was stuck on a life raft with a dead man and his splattered brain matter. Then I ended up on the island that we're heading to, where everyone I met was either out to kill me or was killed in front of me. In the last two years since I've been home, I saw both my best friend and my mother die in front of me. I looked into their eyes and saw the light go out of them. I buried a woman that I had loved in a coffin that was made for her seven years prior. Her death only reminded me that my life only ends one way, so I'm sorry that I'm being _prickly!_ I don't share your sunny disposition on life!"

Barry cringed in his seat at Oliver's rising anger, and by the end of his rant he had stopped breathing. The silence that followed felt thick enough to suffocate any and all levity. Barry took a quiet, shuddering breath, his heart clenching in sympathy to Oliver's pain. "That really sucks," he muttered, not knowing what else to say.

Oliver scoffed. "That's one way to put it," he replied darkly, his fingers resuming their movements on his forehead.

Another silence fell over them. Barry didn't know what to say. Yes, he had witnessed his mother's murder, and it had left a permanent mark on his soul, but the sheer intensity of Oliver's suffering over a seven year span eclipsed his own pain. Also, Barry had had years to come to terms with his past; Oliver was still in the middle of suffering from his.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, the only sentiment he could convey, knowing it wasn't enough.

"No," Oliver countered, "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."

Barry let out a breath, feeling the tension between them easing. "It's okay," he replied.

Oliver shook his head. "It's not." He regarded Barry thoughtfully. "And I think you were right."

Barry was taken aback. "About what?"

"I might be a little jealous of you."

His stomach plummeted, his rage-induced words coming back to haunt him. "I didn't really mean that," he rushed to explain, but Oliver shook his head, cutting him off.

"I think a part of me is jealous how easily you got into this life, and how effortless it is for you to relate to the people around you."

The melancholy on Oliver's face broke his heart, and he couldn't help reaching out to his brother. "You have to cut yourself some slack, Oliver. I've had a lot of years and love to get over my mom's death. I had Joe and Iris, and now I have Dr. Wells and Cisco and Caitlin, and they're all helping me figure this life out. You have people too. Mr. Diggle, Roy, Felicity-" Barry stopped talking when Oliver's face crumpled slightly at her name, and suddenly it was all clear to him.

Oliver had feelings for Felicity, too. It wasn't just a one-sided crush. Either they both didn't know it, or they did and wouldn't pursue it, for whatever reason. He re-evaluated Oliver's advice with this new information, and understood that Oliver was pining for Felicity as much as he pined for Iris. There was one major difference between them, however. Iris didn't return his feelings. That was not the case with Oliver and Felicity.

He thought about his conversation with Felicity on the train. What if she knew about Oliver's feelings? That made her words a little more heartbreaking, in hindsight. He reconsidered everything she had said to him on her last visit. She had seemed a little extra sad about Oliver, more than she had been last year. He concluded that they both knew of each other's feelings, and decided not to do anything about it. That really confused him.

"Can I ask you something?" he ventured tentatively.

Oliver nodded.

"Why…" He took a breath and steeled himself for Oliver's reaction. "Why aren't you and Felicity together?"

Oliver visibly flinched at his question and turned his head to look out the window. Barry watched as he swallowed a couple of times, trying to suppress his emotions. He wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light, but he thought Oliver's eyes had taken on a slight sheen.

"We made our decisions," he croaked.

Barry thought about that response. Decisions, as in plural, as in two separate ones. One decision that led to another. But who acted first? Would Felicity have walked away from Oliver if she knew how he felt? Or did Oliver, for some messed up, noble reason, push her away? That seemed more likely. He did have a bit of a martyr complex.

He thought about their conversation in the Arrow cave, about how Oliver felt like he was losing pieces of himself. "You know," he said without hesitating, "Felicity could help you hold onto the part of you that you feel like you're losing."

Oliver didn't reply for a very long time. Barry thought he wasn't going to get one, but then, Oliver whispered, "It's too late for that."

Barry scoffed. "No it's not. She cares about you. A lot. We've talked about you." At this, Oliver's head whipped around and he glared at Barry. He immediately got defensive, throwing up his hands. "Nothing bad! I'm just saying...she wants to be with you. Whatever you think she's decided, if you went after her, I'm pretty sure she'd be yours in a heartbeat."

Oliver seemed to consider this, and he turned his head to resume looking out the window.

Barry got the feeling that the subject was officially closed, which was fine with him. He reclined his seat further and decided to get some sleep. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes with a sigh. Pep talking a brooding vigilante was hard work. He wasn't sure how Caitlin did it. He made a mental note to thank her when they went back home.


End file.
